He first opened his mouth in religious testimony in the First Month of
this year. The occurrence seems to have taken place in his own family; it
yielded him a "precious sense of the Divine Presence." He began to preach
in public a few months later, but not without another struggle against the
heavenly impulse.

The friendship which Joseph Wood entertained for John Yeardley
strengthened with revolving years. When he visited Barnsley, he was
accustomed to lodge at his house; and writing to him in the year 1811,
about a public meeting which he felt concerned to hold, he says, "I can
with freedom write to thee, feeling that unity with thy spirit which
preserves us near and dear to each other, and in which freedom runs."

In the Fourth Month of this year, when Joseph Wood received a certificate
to visit some of the midland counties, J.Y. felt desirous "of setting him
a little on his way."


On the 14th, he says, we went to Woodhouse, where we had a meeting, and my
friend was enabled to speak very closely to the states of many present.
When in the meeting, I felt a very weighty exercise to attend my mind
with an intimation publicly to express it. But this exposure I dared not
yield to, under an apprehension that it might be wrong in me, considering
the occasion on which I had come out; but truly I left the place under a
burden which I was scarcely able to bear.


It was on the 20th of the Fourth Month that he began to speak in public as